Game of Thrones - Reviews @ Eurogamer, Baltimore Sun

by Dhruin, 2012-05-31 22:42:34

Here are a couple of reviews for Game of Thrones as the international release approaches next week.

First, Eurogamer has plenty of criticism but they acknowledge some positives on the way to a score of 6/10. Given they think the "turn-based" combat has "dated charm", fans of RTwP might have cause to get mildly excited:

Like the storytelling, gameplay is a slow burn. While it's almost criminal that the game wasn't designed from the start as an action role-player with graphic combat more akin to The Witcher 2 or Dark Souls, the turn-based battles carry a certain dated charm that grows on you. Selecting commands from your ability wheel slows time, adding a bit of strategic flavour when you choose how you want to strike. Unlocking new skill tree abilities helps, and given that you can control many of the partners that come and go from your party as the story dictates, it can be quite fun figuring out how to best use your party's skills later in the game, when larger, more chaotic melees become more common.

Outside of combat, BioWare-style choices affect how the story develops with some impact. An early example occurs when Alester, faced with famine and a crumbling economy in Riverspring, can either quell a civilian mob through violence or charity; choosing the latter earns popular support when you later face an invading army. This works with people's perceptions of you, too. But many choices are ambiguous, and there were more than a few cases when I thought I was picking the best answer for the situation only to have it blow up in my face.

Combat is turn-based action, similar to the “Knights of the Old Republic” series. However, the pacing isn't quite right, and the player is often more of a bystander than a participant in melees. The game features an interesting slowdown feature to perform special moves in combat, but the effect is lost in the clunkiness of the combat and general interface.